roused Japan in 1854.  It is frequently argued, in editorial articles and public speeches, that the Japanese are peculiarly fitted to lead China along the path of progress, not only indirectly by example, as they have been doing, but directly by teaching, as foreigners have led Japan.  “The Mission of Japan to the Orient” is a frequent theme of public discourse.  But national ambitions do not rest here.  It is not seldom asserted that in Japan a mingling of the Occidental and Oriental civilizations is taking place under such favorable conditions that, for the first time in history, the better elements of both are being selected; and that before long the world will sit to learn at her feet.  The lofty ambition of a group of radical Christians is to discover or create a new religion which shall unite the best features of Oriental and Occidental religious thought and experience.  The religion of the future will be, not Christianity, nor Buddhism, but something better than either, more consistent, more profound, more universal; and this religion, first developed in Japan, will spread to other lands and become the final religion of the world.

A single curious illustration of the high-flying thoughts of the people may well find mention here.  When the Kumamoto Boys’ School divided over the arbitrary, tyrannical methods of their newly secured, brilliant principal, already referred to in a previous chapter, the majority of the trustees withdrew and at once established a new school for boys.  For some time they struggled for a name which should set forth the principles for which the school stood, and finally they fixed on that of “To-A Gakko.”  Translated into unpretentious English, this means “Eastern Asia School”; the idea was that the school stood for no narrow methods of education, and that its influence was to extend beyond the confines of Japan.  This interpretation is not an inference, but was publicly stated oil various occasions.  The school began with twenty-five boys, if my memory is correct, and never reached as many as fifty.  In less than three years it died an untimely death through lack of patronage.

The young men of the island of Kyushu, especially of Kumamoto and Kagoshima provinces, are noted for their ambitious projects.  The once famous “Kumamoto Band” consisted entirely of Kyushu boys.  Under the masterful influence of Captain Jaynes those high-spirited sons of samurai, who had come to learn foreign languages and science, in a school founded to combat Christianity and to upbuild Buddhism, became impressed with the immense superiority of foreign lands, which superiority they were led to attribute to Christianity.  They accordingly espoused the Christian cause with great ardor, and, in their compact with one another, agreed to work for the reform of Japan.  I have listened to many addresses by the Kumamoto schoolboys, and I have been uniformly impressed with the political and national tendencies of their thought.